


easy, easy (my man and me)

by philthestone



Category: Outlander (TV)
Genre: Alternate Universe - Modern Setting, F/M, also i was having some emotions about the meaning of commitment, i missed living in a house w small children in it, theres no plot here outside of 'they build a treehouse and love each other', to the commenter who asked for modern au fraser fambly ... here u go
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-07-27
Updated: 2020-07-27
Packaged: 2021-03-05 18:59:56
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 5,448
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/25540210
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/philthestone/pseuds/philthestone
Summary: Across their small backyard, Faith and Bree have successfully cornered their father between the budding lavender bush and damp vegetable patch, and subsequently started expounding in detail upon their rapidly-developing design ideas. Each new addition barrels the treehouse from its humble origins of “wooden shack, maybe” to what is shaping up to be a combination laird’s fairy-dwelling pirate-ship-themed mermaid inclusive library-cum-invisible areoplane castle.Claire decides to take a page out of her husband’s book and bequeath the project’s fate, momentarily, to Divine Grace, instead focusing on William, who has taken his thumb out of his mouth to convey a most solemn and heartfelt suggestion:"You c'n bring sick people here, Mama, so they'll have us t'play with, when you're makin' 'em not sick again."
Relationships: Claire Beauchamp/Jamie Fraser, Fergus Fraser/Marsali McKimmie Fraser, Minor or Background Relationship(s)
Comments: 37
Kudos: 129





	easy, easy (my man and me)

**Author's Note:**

> i have no excuses for this. absolutely zero. it was triggered by em sending me a random prompt three days ago for a 3-sentence prompt meme and spiralled rapidly and unceremoniously out of control, meaning that i wrote it in 2 days without stopping, cried a lot for no reason other than feeling things, and am happier with it than i have been with anything ive written for the past three months.
> 
> a disclaimer is that ive never read the books and also havent watched a thing past 3x01, so there is no canonical significance to borrowed minor character names or age differences or timelines. except marsali bc she's a legend.
> 
> reviews are precious to me; i hope this touches your hearts w the same tenderness it brought to mine

June heralds the family decision to build a treehouse, which is done more on a whim than based on any real request made by the children. They determine, collectively, that it shall be built atop the lone, too-short oak tree in their backyard -- the one that looms over Claire’s vegetable patch -- and that upon completion the inside will be decked with fairy lights.

The fairy lights are very important; if _not_ included, Bree insists, how will the fairies visit them?

William is not thusly concerned. He tugs at Claire’s hand, peering intently up at her, whilst his older sisters -- freshly full of end-of-school-year energy -- make a beeline for the tree’s vast trunk, chattering excitedly and bouncing up and down and like that old Dollartree packet of Mexican jumping beans Geillis discovered in the lost and found during she and Claire’s first year of residency. 

Claire returns his gaze with all the appropriate aplomb, solemn as he is.

“You c’n use it for doctor things, Mama,” William informs her, from around the thumb stuck resolutely in his mouth. He has not yet relinquished his rather healthy grip on the thumb-sucking phase.

“How’s that, lovey?” asks Claire. Across their small backyard, Faith and Bree have, having successfully cornered their father between the budding lavender bush and damp vegetable patch, started expounding in detail upon their rapidly-developing design ideas. Each new addition barrels the treehouse from its humble origins of “wooden shack, maybe” to what is shaping up to be a combination laird’s fairy-dwelling pirate-ship-themed mermaid inclusive library-cum-invisible areoplane castle. 

Claire decides to take a page out of her husband’s book and bequeath the project’s fate, momentarily, to Divine Grace. She focuses on her contemplative four-year-old.

“T’bring sick people in there to see’em,” Willam is explaining. Another tug on her hand. “So, sometimes, you c’n do work an’ things right here, an’ also they can play with us while they get better. Not _all_ th’time,” he adds, meditative, “‘cause they might be too sick. But if they _want_ to, Mama.”

He goes back to sucking on the thumb.

Not for the first time, Claire feels the gentle-soft cracking open of her heart, bared and healed in tandem by the sweet, serious compassion of her round-cheeked children. The early-June air is already getting cool, a touch of evening purple in the sky, and Claire says,

“That is very considerate of you, William,” and wills herself not to do anything so insensible as to start crying.

She looks up; Jamie has materialized beside her, the breadth of both t-shirt clad arms monopolized by overly enthusiastic daughters who have seemed to adopt all the qualitative characteristics of vibrating koalas. He catches her eye over the top of William’s curly head and gives her a small look, one of those _can you believe we’re here right now_ looks that is full of the sort of gratefulness only people like Jamie can carry in their hearts.

Also, there is a twinkle to his eye -- like he knows their tiny son had almost turned his mother to mush not a moment before. 

“-- course, we’ll have t’make ladder rungs big enough for Willie t’climb,” Faith’s announcing, sounding like she’s listing the twelfth item in a thirty-two-point power-point slide deck to be presented to esteemed members of the board. “‘Cause his legs are so little. But they’ll also have t’be stuck in enough so that _you_ can climb up, Da.”

“You’re awfully bigger than Willie,” Bree agrees, with that same solemnity her brother had exhibited earlier. Only she has not stopped bouncing for the last five minutes. “An’ we can’t have ‘n adventure house without ye in it, Da.”

“Ah,” says Claire, “so it’s an _adventure_ house now, is it?” 

She is archly practical in tone, raising one inquiring eyebrow at her children. The girls falter in their vibrations. Bree sniffs, routed, and Faith takes the moment to push her thick plastic-framed glasses back up the bridge of her nose. 

Then William says, “ _Obviously_ itssa ‘venture house, Mama,” as if that should have been the most manifest thing in the world.

Again, she meets Jamie’s eye; his grin is radiant. 

Summer-coloured.

“ _Obviously_ ,” he repeats, in an eerily similar, if resoundingly deeper-chested rendition.

 _Can you believe we’re here right now_ , Claire thinks, almost overwhelmed by the joyful fierceness of the thought, and declares that she of course knew it all along, and was just, in matter of fact, testing them. 

Jamie takes point on the actual building of the thing, which is a reality that the entire enterprise was premised upon; his farmboy handiness has always been offset by Claire’s own complete inability in all things home-hardware-related, and by summer solstice the old oak that has for so long shadowed the backyard of their tiny, Edinburgh cottage has got a jerry-rigged ladder leading up to its selectively sawed-off branches, and something of the beginnings of a wall.

In July Claire comes downstairs after a particularly rowdy session of wrangling pajama-clad children into bed to the sight of him camped at the kitchen table, looking very much like one of those harangued military generals of old. Three varying piles of papers are spread over the scratched plastic tablecloth covering his parents’ old mahogany dining set, kept company by Bree and Faith’s glitter gel pen blueprint of the Adventure House’s interior and the last dregs of a pot of coffee that it is really too late to be drinking. He’s chewing on the end of his pen -- a habit she knows he’s picked up from her, and declares disgusting whenever self-aware enough to catch himself at it -- and has busted out his own pair of glasses, which are a relatively recent development despite their decided lack of modernity in wire-rimmed shape and style. 

Claire loves them.

She slips easily around the table and perches on the edge that holds the least precariously-positioned paper stack, plucking the closest one from a pile and humming.

“Are these for Spanish?”

“Latin,” Jamie mutters, giving the pen another good chew. “An’ the ones o’er there’re intermediate French. Dinnae ken how some of these snots passed their first year.”

“Mmm,” says Claire, then frowns commiseratingly. “This poor lad has opened his sentence with no less than three spelling errors. Even my French is fair enough to catch that.”

“Yer French is more than adequate, Sassenach,” says Jamie, finally looking up at her and slumping backwards in his chair. It creaks — a sure sign that it is really not at all large enough to be holding his person. Claire arches an eyebrow and tries very hard to hold back a smile. 

“Oh, _adequate_. That’s just what every young lady’s wanting to hear.”

“ _Passable_ ,” Jamie offers, one corner of his mouth ticking up. His pen-less hand seems to reach for Claire’s wrist of its own accord. “Did the weans go down alright? Thank ye fer takin’ care of ‘em, I ken it’s a bit much on yer own, I just --”

“Were dying in a sea of poorly-grammaticized undergraduate language papers, I know, poor darling.” She grins in turn, and leans forward to push the glasses over his forehead so that her thumbs can press gently against the corners of his eyes. As always, the specs are in equal parts thrilling in their newness and sweet and pleasant as a reminder: the lack of purple plastic does nothing to offset how much their presence on Jamie’s nose brings out the shared slant of he and Faith’s eyes. “Well, we certainly should _not_ have announced that Fergus is visiting home from school this weekend ten minutes before bedtime, _but_ five renditions of the most beloved Princess Addellia Bean story calmed them eventually.”

“Wee monsters,” Jamie says, full of affection. 

“Have we made progress on the treehouse of doom?”

“Faith’s been negotiated down from three mobile libraries tae a couple’ve bookshelves on the far wall.”

“Mmm, our girl knows how to pick her battles. And the -- what was William’s request?”

“A startle light dish,” Jamie recites, dutiful in his pronunciation. The glasses slip pack down, perching lopsided on the slight hook of his nose. Claire’s thumbs move carefully to a higher, more deliberate position against his temples. He mutters something indecipherable, then says, marginally more articulate: “Whatever ye’re doing, Sassenach, don’t stop.”

“I don’t believe I’m doing anything particularly interesting.”

“Ye’ve got hands like magic,” he mumbles, eyes closed. “‘Tis somethin’ in yer fingers. I’m realizin’, I might’ve taken a witch to bed.”

“This witch is doing nothing but sleeping tonight, unfortunately,” says Claire. She places one more round of careful pressure against his hairline before offering a small, gentle smile. “Early shift, remember? A tracheotomy, and whatever else the universe might throw up on my scrubs.”

Jamie blinks up at her owlishly. He is not exhausted -- nothing about the chaotic dining table spread claims exhaustion. Only the quiet, lived-in tiredness of multiple tasks to juggle, happy and well-loved at a core part of them that endures their less savory elements. “So ye’ve left me tae handle the wee devils in the morning.”

“Don’t I always?”

“Aye,” he says, with all the resignation of someone enduringly, stubbornly delighting in their task of misery. “They have it worse than I do, though.”

“Mmm.” Indulgent, half-knowing; they’ve been blessed with three vibrant little souls who have all resoundingly taken after their mother in their hatred of early mornings. 

Jamie leans his head over and presses a small reflexive kiss against the mound of her palm. 

“Go on. Get yer sleep -- I’ll try no’ t’wake ye when I come up.”

She removes her hands, replacing the sorry French paper with the girls’ glittery schematics. She recognizes the monkey-themed stickers adorning the top to be William’s -- a gift from Murtagh some months back, when Willie was in his monkey phase -- and the haphazard repetition of the word _magnificent_ in meticulous eight-year-old-girl penmanship, a sure sign that Brianna’s discovered and more than enthusiastically adopted a new favourite vocabulary word.

“I’ve stripped Faith’s bed,” Claire says absently, inspecting the sparkly orange slope of a roof, surrounded by what must be the poor oak tree’s leaves in equally vibrant purple. There’s a measurement in the corner, in markedly more adult fountain pen, where Jamie’s estimated the approximate length and width of the scaffold. “You and the kids can make it up tomorrow, before Fergus gets here --” a remembering -- “And I suppose poor Marsali shall just have to fit herself into the twin with him. Did you tell them to bring sleeping bags?”

“Dinna fash, they’re young an’ sprightly yet. We can kick Fergus out tae the backyard.” His eyes, tired as they are, glimmer. “It’ll be good t’have an extra set of hands on this treehouse, though.”

“ _Adventure_ house,” Claire says, as loftily as William had, and then, “well, I suppose the school nurse in me will be at ease knowing unprotected sex can’t happen when one party is exiled to a tree.”

“Och, _Claire_ ,” says her husband, his whole person and the chair shaking with the laugh, and she hops off the table, blueprints folded neatly against her half-zipped sweatshirt, ready to swan her way upstairs. He makes a footnote grab for her arse. She realizes that she’s halfway into mentally sorting through wood varnishes for the Adventure House’s interior when she falls asleep, five hours away from work and another week of love-filled chaos.

Fergus’s arrival is as momentous as the delayed bedtime routine of Thursday suggested. The children are installed in the backyard, by tenuous design, so that when Jamie pulls into the driveway after the half-hour trip to the bus station no heads are smashed against concrete in the inevitable race to scream _hello_ first. Instead, Fergus is allowed to give Claire a bear-hug and two smacking kisses; trip over William’s single yellow galosh, somehow materialized in the middle of the airy front hall despite the fact that its pair is surely somewhere tucked away in storage awaiting next March; show off his tanned, smiling face and a stylish sort of manbun that Claire cannot help but roll her eyes at; and make it as far as the kitchen before he’s finally spotted through the glass porch window.

Claire watches from the foot of the staircase, misplaced yellow galosh in hand, as their eldest son is accosted and dogpiled by a supersonic amalgam of four-to-ten-year-old. 

Jamie’s already disappeared upstairs with the overnight backpacks slung over his shoulders and the cheerful grin of someone well used to being the recipient of Excited Small Child Stampede. She and Marsali are left in the kitchen to smell the slowly cooking lasagna and watch the evolving tableau outside: Faith and Bree attempting to talk over one another in a desperate bid to bring their elder brother up to speed on every detail their lives as fast as humanly possible, and William, jumping up and down between Fergus’s lanky legs with such intensity that he looks like he’s going to wet himself.

Not _entirely_ off the table, Claire has to allow. 

It’s early evening still, but burgeoningly warm; Claire can feel her hair escaping her bun and sticking to her hairline and temples. Through the muffled heat there’s a slight defensive edge held ready when Claire turns -- uncertainty, tempered by a somewhat sweaty readiness to be defiant. In short, Marsali is hovering awkwardly. 

There wasn’t a sleeping bag in sight, she thinks, resigned.

She sighs, and then smiles with the practiced ease of motherhood.

“You know,” she says. “There’s still an hour or so left ‘til dinner. I’ve all my old textbooks from medical school just upstairs in the attic. They’re yours, if you want them.”

Marsali’s eyes widen. 

“Yer serious?”

“Come on,” says Claire. “We’ll leave the men to handle the monkeys. You may have to sleep on a foam puzzle mat,” she adds, slightly apologetic, but the edge has dissolved. There is not much that incites more immediate, deeper commiseration than the sharing of pre-med exam booklets.

“I’ll bide.” All hesitation has turned into a wide grin, dimple-cheeked and round-faced. They start up the staircase to the continued sound of the children’s chattering excitement. “I’m fair flexible, anyhow, but I’ll make Fergus sleep on the floor.”

From the open porch door, Faith’s voice sounds, declarative as always: “An’ y’wouldn’t even _guess_ Fergus, but we’re buildin’ a _treehouse_! _You’re_ gonna be helpin’ us, obviously --”

Somewhere in the house, the air conditioning starts up, triggered by so many happily, heedlessly left-open doors.

Saturday morning turns out to prelude one of the hottest days of the year, and so treehouse-building is put on hold in favour of visiting the seaside. Claire opts to stay home and get them started on sanding and painting its interior the most boring shade of eggshell white, and to finally catch up on her favourite medical podcast. She helps Jamie corral the elements and promises she won’t finish the Adventure House without them.

“Sandals, water bottle, bathing things -- have you got Faith’s inhaler?”

“Aye — where’d we put the watermelon?”

“Oh, Marsali, can you grab those towels I left on the counter?”

“Three more bites, Bree, ye cannae be strong enough t’swim on aught but orange juice.”

Faith has somehow conned Fergus into _doing_ her cloud of frizzing cinnamon curls, and the two of them are currently positioned in a tangle of lanky limbs and multicolour butterfly clips on the couch. William on the other hand is going through a sudden bout of shyness and refuses to detach himself from his father’s neck. Also, half of their pancake breakfast seems to have found its way onto his face and shirtless front. 

“C’mon, wee man,” Jamie says, balancing four-year-old and overloaded beach bag with some difficulty. His sunglasses are dangling precariously from the spot between his teeth. He looks tired already, but pulled together and steady in that way that neatly slots against the sometimes-frayed edges of Claire’s consciousness. “Ye dinnae want tae put yer nice trunks on fer Fergus an’ Marsali t’see?”

“‘M all sticky, Da,” William explains morosely, before once more pressing his cheek with soft lackadaisy into the curve of Jamie’s shoulder.

Bree is not in fact finishing her breakfast but sermoning a very sweetly attentive Marsali.

“Fergus’s studyin’ business an’ things,” like the poor girl wouldn’t already know, “but he’s _minoring_ in books. Mama taught me tha’ word last month. I really like books only no’ as much as Faith does, but I _do_ like ‘em. My favourite one is Redwall ‘cause the main character has a sword an’ I really like swords. But it’s not my _favourite_ favourite ‘cause there aren’t any horses. An’ sometimes I like readin’ Judy Moody too even though they’re for littler kids, ‘cause she’s from America an’ it’s good t’learn about new places. Have _you_ got a favourite book, Marsali?”

“She only reads books about germs,” Fergus says, through a mouthful of butterfly clips.

“I _love_ germs,” Faith cries; she’s just recently discovered the concept of biology.

“Oh,” says Claire, remembering, “Marsali needs sunglasses —“

“Dinna fash. We’re all sorted.” Jamie’s voice is no longer muffled; his own sunglasses are somewhere tangled in his hairline now. They’re making his bangs, just recently too-long, stick up in a way that is both ridiculous and endearing. Miraculously he’s deposited William into Marsali’s child-friendly arms, and he pauses in crossing the front hall to settle for a moment just in front of her, long enough to give her a meaningful look that means _take the day to yerself._

Claire looks back: _I’ll try my soldier best._

Bree’s now started waxing poetic about the Magic School-Bus. She has one strappy purple sandal on and the other stuck over her hand like a glove. 

“Fergus is minoring in literature, darling,” says Claire belatedly, running over to address the remaining sandal before it finds its way into the pancake plate. Then, to Jamie: “I put the watermelon in the tupperware.”

The whirlwind slows; he leans over and plants a soft, dry kiss on her forehead. “Dinnae sand the wee ladder t’death, Sassenach.”

“With these guns?” says Claire. Sandal issues diverted, she starts working a spot of William-sourced jam out of the hem of her t-shirt. “Well, anything can happen, really.”

Ten minutes later all rosy-cheeked jam-sticky family members are successfully herded out the door and Claire has satisfied herself by yelling “ _Don’t forget to use the bloody suncream!”_ at least twice. She changes into an old pair of overalls dug out from Lallybroch’s attic last spring, contains her own frizzy cloud of hair in her favourite yellow kerchief, swipes the remainder of Faith’s orange juice and Bree’s pancakes and troops out to the backyard. 

By sundown she’s covered most of the floor and a significant portion of the second wall and made it through four episodes of _Legends of Surgery_. She hears Jamie’s footsteps on the ladder before she sees him, attuned to his presence from twelve years of shared life and something unquantifiable Claire struggles to name.

The flashlight she’s set up casts funny shadows over the idiosyncratically sharp angles of his sweet face. Her first thought: his nose and cheekbones have burned.

“ _Suncream_ ,” Claire says, aggrieved.

“Ye’ve got paint in yer hair,” he says by way of answering. Only his head and the upper half of his torso are visible through the Adventure House’s makeshift entrance. They’ll have to start on windows and doors in the coming weeks, and do something about a roof before midsummer thunderstorms start. Then, sheepishly: “The last of the bottle went t’Bree’s nose. I’ll bide.”

“Hmmm,” Claire says, swiping her paintbrush in two absent strokes over a given plank of wall. “No death or injuries?”

“Faith managed a handstand in the shoals,” Jamie says. There’s a flash of expected, cockerell-pride in his grin. “She’ll be tellin’ ye all about it come tomorrow, I’m sure. An’ Willie’s declared he’d like his next bathin’ suit t’be a bikini.” 

“Very progressive of him,” says Claire.

“He thinks the polka dots on Marsali’s are killer. She an’ Fergus volunteered tae put ‘em down fer bed,” he adds.

Unvoiced question; ready response.

“So come in here then,” she says, feeling emboldened by her four episodes and the sweat drying on her neck and under her armpits. Roofless as it is, the Adventure House has a lovely breeze going. They’re surrounded by the chirruping of the evening outdoors and the golden sparks of fireflies and Jamie says,

“I’ll no’ be havin’ ye o’er a half-painted wooden floor covered in sawdust.”

“My paint job is excellent, thank you,” Claire says primly.

“We’ve a perfectly nice shower inside.”

“Lost your sense of adventure, Fraser?”

“One day,” Jamie says -- his cheeks are furrowed with beautiful laugh lines -- “the bairns’ll be older an’ weasel it out’ve us, and _you’ll_ be responsible fer managin’ the uproar.”

She laughs, golden as the fireflies, bell-like. Together they make their way back into the house, smeared paint and sunburn and all.

Claire takes a week off on the bookend of July and the installment of windows and doors coincides with one of Murtagh’s weekly visits. She makes her way through the yard and up the treehouse’s ladder, plated lunch in hand; Jamie is shingling the roof, because he refuses to do anything in halves.

“I’ve brought sandwiches,” Claire says. The heat’s still consuming, all-surrounding, in a way that she doesn’t usually associate with Scotland. _Oh, global warming_ , she thinks, and kneels down against the solid wood-planked porch they’ve rigged to allow for roof construction. Careful to avoid stray nails, she holds the laden plate out.

Jamie’s wedged between two of the old oak’s thicker branches. He's wearing an old _St. Andrew’s Junior Rugby_ t-shirt that has seen better days, and his face and neck are glowing pink from the heat. Claire’s yellow kerchief is holding his hair out of his eyes.

Successfully maneuvered down to sit with her on the ledge, he takes a big bite of sandwich before Claire can suggest the employment of one of the many Lysol baby wipes at their disposal, and together, they let their legs dangle over their small backyard.

Presently Jamie brings up her hand and presses a kiss to the back of it. She hadn’t even realized he was holding it. Claire says,

“You should know Murtagh is the one who made the sandwiches.” 

Rhetorical; she’s not entirely sure the kiss was purely an economical expression of thanks.

“Oh, aye,” he says. His eyes glow with the tease, like his sweaty skin. “I ken yer kitchen handiwork jest fine, _mo ghraidh_.”

Then they watch the proceedings below. Murtagh has paused in conducting the kids through painting the Adventure House windows (illustrations of their choice, child-friendly paint at the ready) to play lone audience member to what appears to be the rehearsal of a twelve-act play. She can see Faith, gentle and assured in her quintessential eldest sibling role, guiding Bree through stage directions -- Bree is playing a horse, of course -- whilst William sings an only somewhat accurate rendition of what Claire _thinks_ is the Power Rangers theme song. Their little heads bob up and down, curls dampened by the sprinkler: Faith auburn, Bree coppery, and William, almost chestnut in the sunlight. They’re preparing it for the upcoming visit with their cousins in two weeks, she remembers -- a grand epic that must be worthy of Auntie Jenny’s scrutiny and Granny Ellen’s unconditional support. She watches as Bree breaks character for a moment to spring up to her feet and circle her short arms around her older sister in a spontaneous, childish backwards hug. 

Faith has always been small for her age, and Bree a bit too tall, and from this angle they are nearly the same height, wrapped around each other and sunkissed and giggling.

Something in Claire’s chest tightens, but softly, not sharply. 

“We should have a general plan for August,” she decides, turning to her husband. His glowing-pink cheeks bring out the perennial boyishness lurking in the corners of his face. “I’ll be back to work and your other course starts up.”

Jamie sucks a bit of tomato off the end of his thumb. They’re good tomatoes, Claire thinks -- from the garden. “Second week o’ August they’re wi’ Jen an’ Ian. They’ve been ravin’ about it fer a month, dinnae forget.” 

“Seared into my memory forever,” Claire agrees.

“Then Faith’s got her wee day camp. The art one -- ye dinnae think Bree’d like that too?”

“Probably more than Faith does, but she’s not old enough yet.” She sneaks one of his pickles. “It’s ten to thirteen year olds only. And Willie’s still too little to not get lonely without one of them.”

“As ye say.” He taps his fingers like he’s counting. “So Faith’s there. I can see if Mrs. Fitz’ll take the weans for the mornings. I’ll be back in afternoons, ken.”

“Mmm,” Claire hums. “And on Thursdays --” Thursdays are always busiest -- 

“Murtagh’s helpin’ at the farm, an’ August’s harvest.”

“Mrs. Graham said they could stay next door some afternoons,” Claire says. “That should be good enough.” 

Jamie nods, then grins; triumph at an approaching adversary identified, routed, and summarily taken out in a neat preemptive strike.

Nothing about the lead-up to their organized-ness has been _easy_ , but in the moment, it slots together, almost effortless. The feeling in Claire’s chest is still there. It dampens the corners of her eyes, but no tears actually fall. But perhaps that’s because the heat has evaporated her tear ducts. 

She supposes somewhere in between all of that, they’ll finish the treehouse.

“Mama, Willie’s got paint on his _bits_!” comes a shriek from below, followed swiftly by incoherent Murtagh-flavoured exclamations. Claire gets a splinter in her thumb mid-descent, but it’s filed away as one of the many things no longer truly consequential.

The heatwave continues and they finish the roof. On the last Sunday afternoon of Claire’s week off, she emerges, unwitting, from a too-hot summer shower to an occupied bed. She pauses in towelling her hair; their poor comforter has been kicked to the end of the bed and replaced with three of their oldest sheets and various ratty t-shirts. They’re tied in odd shapes around different body parts -- she can recognize what must be a cape, and perhaps the lumpy representation of a crown -- and the ceiling fan is flapping furiously to make up for the seasonally-inappropriate layering of undergarments in lieu of adventure attire. 

Claire walks over to inspect the dog-pile of three small children, one cat, and adult husband before grabbing her phone from the nightstand and snapping a photo. Slowly, from the bottom of the pile, Jamie cracks one sleepy blue eye open at her. 

“I ken ye’re probably sendin’ that to my Mam,” he says, slowly enough that she has to start fighting back a grin, “but if it gets into Jenny’s hands, Claire, I’ll be _verra_ upset.”

“ _Where_ did you get the cat,” says Claire.

“Hmm?” He peers down, eyes narrowing. It’s a tiny little thing, more bunny rabbit than cat, curled up into an almost perfect little ball in Faith’s bush of hair. “Och. The Bugs’ cheetie had bairns last month. Bree found this one stuck in the gutter this mornin’ an’ it willnae leave her alone.”

“We are _not_ keeping a cat,” says Claire. Jamie raises his eyebrows at her, like he’s daring her to try to intervene in the machinations of the universe. She can see the abandoned second half of some poor student’s marked-up thesis dissertation still open on the work tablet nestled by his head. 

The tiny kitten’s nose twitches; so does Bree’s. But he says,

“No, we’re no’. We’ll be takin’ the wee rattin back tae Mrs. Bug in the mornin’.”

“He’s kind of cute,” Claire supposes, deliberate in her whisper. “In another life he could act as mouser for the Adventure House.”

The tiniest mouser in the world; and God knows how mice would get all the way up the tree. 

But best not to plant the idea into the childrens’ head, either way. 

“Yer cuter,” says her husband, from under the pile of tiny sleeping person.

“Don’t flirt in front of the cat,” she says, then wanders into the living room. She can hear sleepy, inquiring voices start upstairs, likely due to their makeshift mattress shaking under them with suppressed, muffled laughter. Pulling out her laptop, she opens up Amazon, and orders the much-coveted fairy lights.

When they finally finish the treehouse, it is the last week of August. The small details of old tablecloths-turned-drapes, piled porch cushions, and relocated stuffed animals are abbreviated in the rush of excitement to actually occupy it. School is starting soon; a hideaway so special cannot be taken into the mundanity of post-summer life without the sacred, secretive christening rituals of children, and Claire scans through the latest journal articles on coronary bypass grafting from the porch with one eye on the adorned oak as the children spend nearly three straight hours in their new abode, far quieter than she would have expected them to be.

Jamie is inside vacuuming. He comes out when twilight starts inking the sky, hands wet for some reason -- dishes, she wonders? It was her week for laundry -- and presses one gentle thumb against the spot where her neck and shoulder meet. 

“Bedtime?” he asks.

“Give them … seven more minutes,” Claire says. There’s something robin’s-egg fragile about it all. She doesn’t want to intrude.

“ _Specifically_ seven?” He’s grinning. The thumb trails up to push hair away from her face and rub softly over her cheek.

She’s been out here since she got home from her shift; something about the fluctuating greenery of their backyard offsets the adrenaline of being elbows deep in people guts. Bree calls it her _growing heart_ \-- that she likes the garden for the same reason she likes making people not sick.

Terribly insightful for an eight-year-old, Claire thinks.

“Not a second more or less,” Claire says. “Shall I take bedtime?”

“Hmm. I promised I’d start The Hobbit for ‘em -- _with_ voices,” he adds, raising a significant eyebrow. “Faith’s been askin’ fer weeks. If ye can do teeth brushin’ an’ nightclothes, though. An’ Willie’ll be needin’ a bath.”

“Aye aye, captain,” says Claire. His grin widens -- approving -- and the evening moves forward.

Later, Claire finds herself perched on the top step of the Adventure House’s ladder, knees drawn up to her chest. There is the creak of nailed wood against trunk and then Jamie is beside her. He smells slightly of baby shampoo, and also the salad dressing from dinner; Claire does not look at him, but waits for his presence to solidify, and then leans her head on his shoulder.

She’s left her hoodie on the porch -- the heat’s ebbed away -- and in the dark, with the children's beloved lights turned off, she can feel the whispering nip of oncoming Autumn. It rained last week, finally.

She thinks, once more: _Can you believe we’re here right now_.

“Claire,” says Jamie. She looks up. Again, his eyes are tired, creased with the constant movement paradoxically underlying the unwavering commitment they made to each other. “What’re ye thinkin’ of?”

What _is_ she thinking of? 

She searches his face. She’s so cursory about it, about the presence of something _bigger_. Jamie’s never been like that. He has a certainty -- a sort of bone-deep, enduring understanding that they’re a microcosm of a greater, beautiful macrocosm. 

And connected somehow, in between.

“You know,” she says, “when you think I’m not listening, and you say those little prayers of thanks to God?”

His mouth twitches with a curious smile, and they’re far past the feelings once called embarrassment, but she imagines the tips of his ears are turning pink in the dark anyway. 

“Aye,” he says.

“I was just.” The summer has seemed to crystalize something in her, in tandem with the construction of this elaborate, lopsided, fastidiously full-of-love thing. She’s never had the mastery and control of languages Jamie has. But she traces the softened lines of her husband’s dear face, and tries: 

“I was just thinking that -- I’d not want to do this. It’s -- there’s something so deliberate about it all, Jamie, even though it feels like we’re _meant_ to be here, the two of us.” She breathes in, wills herself not to cry, even if it isn’t the bad sort. “All this work, this movement towards something greater than ourselves.”

“Claire,” he says again, soft like the breeze touching their kneecaps. 

“I wouldn’t want to do it, I mean,” says Claire. “With _anyone_ else.”

He laughs, like he knows.

 _Of course he knows_ , Claire thinks. 

Then she lets him kiss her, there in the house they built together.

**Author's Note:**

> the title is from the inimitable joanna newsom. you can find the rest of the lyrics here: https://www.google.com/search?q=joanna+newsom+easy+lyrics&oq=joanna+newsom+easy+l&aqs=chrome.0.0j69i57.3548j0j7&sourceid=chrome&ie=UTF-8
> 
> and the song itself here: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=P_47_CHdzHI
> 
> also, shoutout to zainab for telling me that brits say "suncream" and not "sunscreen". horrifying, but an accurately sourced detail nonetheless!


End file.
